Last Chance
by Idunnowhy
Summary: The Doctor knew all about last chances. But until he left Rose Tyler on that beach for the last time, he never realized that one would be coming for him.
1. Chapter 1

Last chances. The Doctor knew all about last chances. Knew about standing on the edge and making that choice. The choice that would determine the path your timeline took for the rest of eternity. Knowing this was your moment to make it right. The last one you would ever have.

Oh yes, the Doctor knew all about last chances. He just never thought they would happen to him.

He was a Time Lord. Arrogant. All-seeing, all-knowing. Or so he liked to believe. He knew when time was in flux, what events were permanent, what could be changed. He'd like to think that 900 years of travelling gave him a certain feel for humans. What they wanted. What they needed.

Turning back toward the TARDIS, feeling the sand sucking at his shoes and the wind blowing in his face, he tries to ignore the thought that this time, that arrogance might have gotten him killed. Because surely even the body of a Time Lord couldn't survive the pain ripping through his chest. Or the steady throb in his head. Or the nausea rippling and trembling in his stomach while his visual cortex insisted on playing, over and over again, the sight of her standing on her tiptoes and kissing _him._

Stupid, to be jealous. He was the one who made the decision, after all. Decided to leave her here, instead of tucking her back in the TARDIS where she belonged. Decided that she'd be better off with him, that other him. One man in two bodies, they were, but only one of them could build a life with her. A proper life, with roofs and babies and a future that included seeing the same face smiling in the mirror each morning.

He walks faster, focused on the doors of the TARDIS and the oblivion waiting inside. In the TARDIS, there's work to be done. Hopefully enough that he can ignore the way her ghost haunts every shadow. The way he can still smell her perfume on the wind. He can pretend her shirt, the purple one he tucked beneath his pillow the whole first year she was gone, doesn't still sit on a shelf, waiting to be brought down and remembered.

Opening the door, he lets Donna in first, then stops. Turning, he looks back. Just one more time. Yes, she's still kissing him. Holding on like her life depended on it. He tries not to be bitter. But it's hard, knowing that if he could have just spoken the words, told her all the little secrets dancing in his heart, he could have been the man wrapped in her arms. The man planning for tomorrow and tomorrow and all the tomorrows after that in Rose Tyler's beautiful eyes.

Better this way. He ignores Donna's sympathetic looks as he jogs up and fires up the TARDIS. She'd fallen apart when she thought he was going to regenerate. What would she do the next time? And there would be a next time. He wouldn't always have a convenient hand lying around to stop it. Would she still love him, without this daft old face? He'd love her, he knew. He'd brought that with him, the last time he regenerated. He had no doubt he'd bring it with him the next time, and the time after that.

She'd hate him for it eventually. He repeated it over and over again as the TARDIS screamed to life. She'd hate him for the loss of the life she could have had. Hate him for the day her body would become frail, and she'd have to stay behind while he regenerated over and over again. It was better this way, for both of them.

Maybe, if he told himself that over and over again, he wouldn't tear apart into little tiny pieces. Maybe his body would survive this, his mind moving forward instead of screaming at him that this, this was his last chance. That by leaving her this way, he'd lost even the hope of her. And without even the hope of Rose, he was going to be hard pressed to find a reason to keep living.

_**Okay, I have NO idea if I'm going to continue with this or not. Because I have a very…distinct idea of how this story should have played out, would have played out, if the writers had let it, and it doesn't involve Rose living happily ever after with the Doctor's double in a parallel universe. But I'm already knee deep in other fics I'm shamelessly neglecting, and I'm a little nervous about starting another one. (This was meant to be a one-shot, I swear!) So here we go. If you want me to keep going, let me know. Tell me what kind of ending you think they should have given Rose and the Doctor. 10**__**th**__**, 11**__**th**__**, 20**__**th**__**, I don't care. And if you think I should stop here, tell me that too. **_

_**And as always, thanks for reading!**_


	2. Chapter 2

It had been two years since he'd last seen Miss Rose Tyler. Two years since he'd walked away from Bad Wolf Bay, and his last chance to have everything he'd ever wanted. Two years since he wiped Donna's memory and set out, alone, to explore the universe. To figure out if he still had a place in it, now that Rose Tyler was gone.

He still found pieces of her everywhere. He could never decide if that made it better or worse. She was always leaving her stuff lying around the TARDIS, just waiting for him to trip over it. That he had gone over the TARDIS with a fine toothed comb after he'd lost her the last time didn't seem to matter. Nor did the fact that he'd very deliberately dropped her bag off with her at Bad Wolf Bay, filled with the little knick-knacks he'd found lying around her bedroom. It seemed like the TARDIS herself had kept a stash of Rose's things, spitting them out at just the right time to make sure he was always thinking of her.

Just that morning he'd stepped out of the sonic shower and found one of her foolish hairpins caught on the hem of his shirt. She'd probably left it on the wardrobe floor. Or on the floor of his room, on one of those nights when the horrors they'd seen got to be too much and sleep wouldn't come.

Those nights, she'd curl up on his bed, tucking her blonde head into his pillow and listening while he perched on the edge and held her hand. Those nights he told her stories of the Time Lords, and growing up on Gallifrey. He always picked the good ones, the ones that made her smile. Ones his parents had told him, before he was sent off to the Citadel to learn to be a proper Time Lord. She'd listen, laughing and asking questions-full of questions, his Rose-until her eyelids started to droop and she drifted off into oblivion.

Wherever the foolish little clip came from, he couldn't bring himself to put it away. To tuck it in the drawer in the wardrobe with other things his companions had left behind in case he needed it later. (You never knew when you were going to need a spare bottle of hair gel. It was tremendously useful for scaring the Goo beasts of Rhyms.) He called himself a sentimental fool, but he tucked it into his pocket. He'd kept so little of Rose, returning everything he'd found-well, almost everything-so that she could have her belongings with her when she started this new life of hers. Properly, this time.

Glancing at the information sticks on the wall, he grinned. Okay, so maybe these little pieces of her weren't all he had left. Picking up the stick he knew contained all the information the cybermen had on his companions, he thought about plugging it into the TARDIS. The information sticks could be projected into a very nice 3-D show. Add some chips and you had a very handy way to spend the evening.

No, it wouldn't do to dwell. Sighing, he glanced at the controls. He needed to go somewhere. Anywhere. Some point in time and space where he could get busy saving the universe and, finally, start to forget one Rose Tyler. It was past time. Undoubtedly, she'd settled down with his double. Blimey, he-the other he-was probably working for Torchwood now. The thought of it sent worms crawling under his skin. The Doctor, working for Torchwood. Maybe he'd have burned it down.

Yes, that was more like it. He allowed himself a brief smile of satisfaction. The other him was a sensible man. And, after all, blowing up Torchwood was the only sensible thing to do. Without him around, all they did was get in trouble.

He tried not to remind himself that their Torchwood was what had brought his Rose back to him, that final time. He still wasn't sure if he was grateful for that or not.

'The future,' he decided, whipping to the panels with sudden, frenzied speed. He'd had enough of dwelling in the past. Time to start thinking about tomorrow. Reaching over, he flicked buttons and pulled levers, smiling happily when the TARDIS started rattling merrily on her way. She didn't like drifting through time and space any more than he did, and despite his many adventures, until now drifting was precisely what he'd been doing. No more.

The TARDIS landed with a thwack. Glancing at the monitor he straightened his suit coat, made sure his glasses were tucked safely inside, and opened the TARDIS door to see what he could see.

After 900 years of travel, he thought he was ready for anything. What he wasn't ready for was to open the door of the TARDIS and find himself looking at…himself.


	3. Chapter 3

"What?"

"Oi! Where in the bloody hell did you come from?"

Yup. Just checking. The face was his, but the words were pure Donna. It was him. Well, Him, Version 2.0, Donna had called him. Doctor 2.0. Wonder if he could get that put on a license plate. Slap it on the TARDIS. Although he wasn't 2.0, was he? He was 1.0. The original. The one and only. The…

Oh. Right. Planet. Staring at himself. Mustn't get distracted. Especially because if the other doctor was here, that meant that…well. It meant that they'd ripped a hole through space and time. Again. Bloody hell. If he'd known that they were just going to hop from side to side without him, even knowing they were going to bring about the end of the world as they knew it, he wouldn't have put himself through the hell of saying goodbye to Rose in the first place.

There were worse reasons to bring about the end of the world.

"Where did I come from? Where did you come from? You're not supposed to be here!"

"Yeah, tell me about it," the other him grumbled, sticking his hands in his pockets in a very un-Doctor-like way. (Come to think of it, the jeans and polo he was wearing were pretty un-Doctor-like too. At least, for himself, this time around.) "I'm not supposed to be here. I'm not supposed to be anywhere. I'm not even supposed to exist, remember? Yet here I am."

He tried not to roll his eyes. Was he as melodramatic as his other self was? But the look on his other self's face was suddenly so patently miserable that he couldn't tell him to stop being a git.

"Stop being a git." Oh. Well. Apparently he could. "You know full well what I meant. You being here means you ripped a hole in the void. Again. Worlds collapsing. General badness. Any of this ringing a bell?"

The other him shrugged. "Oh, that. Actually, I did that over a year ago. There was a weak spot in the void. No idea what caused it, but I took advantage of it as fast as I could. Used some tech from Torchwood-reminds me a lot of the tech we've swiped off Jack-to hop through and kept on going."

A year. The Doctor felt his heart start to pound. He-the other he-had been in this universe for a year. A whole year. And where he was…

"So where's Rose?"

"Oi, there it is." The other him rolled his eyes. "Don't ask me how I've been, or what I've been doing, or how I managed to survive after you dropped into the middle of that godforsaken universe and then left me like rubbish off the bottom of your shoe. Oh no. It's all, 'Don't destroy the whole of space and time' and 'Where's Rose?' Two peas in a pod, you two are."

Now, no one had ever accused the Doctor of being an idiot. Weeellll…okay. Maybe once or twice. Usually when someone wanted to kill him. And when he'd made himself human-but the Family wanted to kill him. So that didn't really count. Anyway. It didn't take a genius to realize that Doctor 2.0 was dodging his question. He also hadn't missed the fact that Rose was nowhere to be found. Which was odd. Rose was never one to be left behind. Nobody knew that better than he did.

He was starting to get that feeling again. That sinking feeling down deep in his gut that told him something was very, very wrong. And that something was screaming out from the empty space at the other him's side where Rose should be.

"Where," he said through clenched teeth, "is Rose?"


	4. Chapter 4

For a minute, he was desperately afraid he that himself was going to do something violent to…himself. The 30.6 seconds he stood there waiting for an answer from the sulky man in front of him were the longest of his life. Scenario after scenario played out in his head. Was she hurt? Had she been captured? Was she somehow stuck back in the parallel world with no hope for escape? Was she…

His mind shied away violently from the idea that Rose might have pushed the line one too many. But he knew her, his Rose. Knew she'd never back down from a fight. Knew, as surely as he drew breath, that if something had come knocking, she'd have been on the front lines. Had something happened to her? Something that his other self hadn't been able to stop? Something that had drained the breath from her lungs and the light from her eyes?

It wasn't the first time he'd imagined her dead. He'd woken up hundreds of times in the last four years, the four years that he'd had to do without her, shaking, soaked in sweat, her lifeless body dancing before his eyes. The idea that she could have died, in a parallel universe, where he was powerless to save her, had repulsed him. Terrified him. The dreams hadn't been so bad the past two years. _He_ was with her, after all. They'd come, but not as frequently. And he'd always been able to remind himself that she wasn't alone over there. Not anymore.

It didn't make it any easier, but sometimes, if he made himself look past the insensible panic he felt at not being able to watch over her, if he forced himself to think rationally about a woman who'd never made him feel even remotely rational, it made it just a little bit better.

No. He'd know if she was gone. Wouldn't he? Of course he would. He'd know, because both of his hearts would have shattered into a thousand tiny pieces, to be blown across the universe like the body of poor Astrid until he found her again. It was inconceivable, that his Rose would have passed and he wouldn't have known. So what in the bloody hell was going on?

"Just like you, she is." It took him a second to realize that his other self was finally talking. "Bloody stubborn. It never worked, her and I." His voice dropped, softened. Sounded…almost ashamed. "It didn't take long to realize that as much as she wanted me to be you, even though I thought I was you, I was never you. Could never be you.

"We lived together less than three months before I moved out. Had some bloody awful rows in there. No, it doesn't matter why," the other him said when he opened his mouth to ask. "Once I wasn't you, wasn't living in your head, it didn't take long to realize that loving her…that was you."

"Well, of course it was." The Doctor, the original Doctor, was completely befuddled. "It's me. And you're me. So you…"

"Thought I loved her the way you did," 2.0 finished. (He was going to start calling him 2.0. This "Other Doctor" thing was getting confusing, even in his very large Time Lord brain.) "I was wrong. I had your thoughts, your memories, but feelings…the feelings were all brand new. I thought the way you did, but I didn't feel the way you did. Not about the Daleks, and not about her." 2.0 laughed dryly. "My own me, I am. She wanted you, and she had to settle for me. Neither one of us could live with that.

"Thought about bringing her with me through the void, but she wasn't there and the opportunity was closing fast. Pete knew I was leaving. I figured he'd get the message to her and maybe, maybe she'd be able to find her way across to find you." He shrugged uncomfortably. "I waited by the entrance to the void for a couple of days, just in case she wound up coming through, but nobody ever showed. I figured she was too late.

"Got a nice flat, I do. Working with Torchwood here-Jack was tickled pink to have me on. It's not a bad life, all things considered." 2.0 laughed dryly. "And finally, finally, everybody's stopped expecting me to be you."

The Doctor didn't know what to say. What to think. What to feel. He'd spent all this time assuming Rose was happily settled with his clone, and now…now he found out she was alone. That he'd been arrogant in assuming that any piece of him would feel for her the way he did. He'd assumed that she was happy, when in truth he'd sentenced her to a life alone. Alone, stuck in another dimension because his other self turned out to be a stupid, selfish git, when she could have been in the TARDIS with him.

Mistakes. He's made them before, but looking into the dark, bitter eyes of his other self, mentally pulling up the image of Rose looking into those eyes, watching him leave, he has the feeling he made the worst one of his life the day he left her there on Bad Wolf Bay. The day he'd broken his own heart thinking he was doing what was best for her. His last chance, and he'd thrown it away.

The question was, what was he going to do about it?


	5. Chapter 5

The Doctor tucked himself back in the corner of the massive office, content for the moment to take advantage of having the TARDIS on stealth mode just to stand and watch. The blonde head at the desk had been tucked down for hours, steadily combing through a pile of paperwork that seemed to replicate with a speed that would make the cybermen dead mad with jealousy. Every once in a while someone would come through the door and she'd look up, giving him the chance to stare shamelessly at her profile and drink in the sweet voice he'd thought he'd never hear again.

"You may as well come out of the corner." Her head turned to look where he was standing, a small smile quirking the corner of her lips. "Whoever you are, you tripped the sensors hours ago." He didn't move, barely dared to breathe, as she pushed back and spun. Then an involuntary laugh burst through his lips as she propped her feet on the edge of her desk. That was his Rose.

She looked…different. Harder, somehow, despite the easy, arrogant grin on her lips that reminded him uncomfortably of the one he saw in the mirror each morning. Her hair was still a soft blonde, although shorter than he remembered it. A few years older. They looked good on her.

It had taken him forever to find a way back to her. Even with the help of 2.0, and the vast resources of Torchwood (Jack had been extremely accommodating), and a bloody time machine at his disposal, it had taken almost five years of linear time to find the right combination of time and circumstance to get through the rift without ripping a hole in time. Alien invasions and hero's welcomes notwithstanding, he'd thought he was going to lose his mind.

Now that he was here, it was all worth it.

He'd thought about going back to that day on the beach…and this time, he'd decide to be less of a git. He'd thought about going back to the day the other him had left, so she wouldn't be alone. In the end, however, he'd settled for about two years after 2.0 had made his way back to the other universe. Long enough for her to be alone, to have the chance to come to terms with what had happened.

Long enough for her to grow up a little more, to have a taste of exactly what she'd be leaving behind. Because he was going to give her a choice today. One that he was very, very certain he'd never be able to give her again. Once he got her back, if he got her back, curse of the Time Lords be damned. He was never going to be able to let her go.

Heart pounding, palms sweating like a little boy with his first crush, he stepped out of the TARDIS's protective field and into her line of sight.

Her eyes widened for a moment, a flash of excitement chasing through her eyes, before they clouded over. "Well," she said coolly, turning back to the papers on her desk, "the amazing adventurer comes back home. I knew that bit about crossing the void was a lie. Where were you this time? The Aegean sea? Topless beaches in France?"

Rose being angry was nothing new. They'd had some incredible rows while they were stuck together on the TARDIS. Especially the time he'd fed one of those fancy shoes of hers to the head of the Kilien council. Granted, it was so he wouldn't eat them instead. A gesture of good faith, if you will. It hadn't mattered. She'd screamed at him for at least 20 minutes, then disappeared into her room for the better part of a week.

He remembered thinking she was beautiful when she was angry.

No, in the two years they'd spent together the Doctor had gotten good at handling angry Rose. It was the disillusionment, the dull, seeping hurt underneath that nearly tore his heart out. She obviously thought he was his double, and the raw contempt in her voice made him wonder what exactly had happened between the two of them after he had gone.

The Doctor opened his mouth to say something. Anything, really, that would make her smile. Make her realize who he was. Words came easily enough to this incarnation, there had to be something he could say. Astonishingly, what came out of those lips wasn't what he meant to say at all.

"Rose Tyler…I love you."

Her head snapped up, eyes going round with surprise. Those lips opened and closed like a fish gulping fish flakes, a moment he took advantage of by pushing the button on his sonic screwdriver that would de-activate the cloaking he used to conceal the TARDIS.

Rose stared at him, then at the big blue box in the corner of her office, then back at him. She was going to get whiplash if her head kept pinging back and forward that way. "I've been waiting a very long time to say that. I love you. I love you! I love you," he dropped his voice down to a growl, then up to a rising falsetto. "I love you I love you I love you, I…"

"Okay, okay, okay!" She laughed at his antics. "You love me. I get it." Standing up, she walked over and wrapped one hand around his tie. He felt his hearts start to pound…but before he could take advantage of the situation she had slammed him on top of her desk and put a gun to his head. What was it with bloody humans and their bloody firearms? "Thing is, there's only one little blue box like that in this universe or any other. I know. I've looked. And there's only one man that's supposed to be flying around in it. So I'm only going to ask you this once, _mate_. Who are you, and what did you do with the Doctor?"

_**For those of you who watch the show and are going, ummmm, but there was a Doctor in the other timeline created by Donna, so shouldn't there be a Doctor in the parallel universe, the simple answer is no. At least from my POV. Because the Time Lords hopped from universe to universe in their heyday, there could only be one set. Which means one Doctor. "Turn Left" was an alternate timeline, not really an alternate universe, and therefore actually had the SAME Doctor. So, yeah. All that to say, by my reckoning, there can be only one **_


	6. Chapter 6

"Put the gun away, you stupid ape, it's me. The Doctor. Well, not your Doctor. Well, yes, your Doctor, but not _this_ Doctor. Not new Doctor. Well, the other Doctor. The other new Doctor. Well, what I mean is…"

Blimey, he was stuttering and stumbling over his own tongue. That had never happened to him before. This version of him loved to talk. Could babble on all day if the mood struck. But now, here, with Rose, HIS Rose, the Rose his very black, very old soul had been screaming at him to come back to since the day he left her on the beach at Bad Wolf Bay, he couldn't come up with the words to convince her he was who he said he was. And he knew, if he regenerated, it would be far too late.

Then he realized that the cold metal of the gun was no longer pressing into his head, and the hand that was holding him on the desk was resting lightly on the top of his jacket.

"Doctor?" Rose whispered in a quavering voice. She stumbled backward, and he took advantage of the moment to stand up, straighten his jacket…and reach out to grab the hand she held out to him. Before he knew it he had a very warm, bouncing, squirming, crying Rose Tyler in his arms. "Oh my god, it's really you. How did you…?"

"Wait a minute." He tipped his chin so he could see her face, tightening his arms around her waist. He'd waited far too long for another chance to get his hands on her to let her go now. "You were going to shoot me. How did you know it was me?"

Rose slipped an arm from around his waist to brush a piece of hair away from his face. The look in her eyes took his breath away. "There's no one else in any universe, anywhere, that could say so much and make so little sense at the same time."

That was his Rose. But then she was pulling back, backing away from him. The joy had drained out of her face, and he knew she was remembering. Remembering he'd left her here, with him. Remembering the hell he'd put her through. Oh Rose. He had so much to make up to her. Starting with putting her in the TARDIS and taking her back home where she belonged.

"What are you doing here, Doctor?" she asked politely, going around to sit behind her desk. "Is there something that Torchwood can do for you?"

The words were like knives, but he knew he deserved them. This cool, indifferent stranger was no less than he deserved. But what he'd seen on her face before, before she remembered, when they were just Rose and the Doctor again, that was the truth. It had to be the truth. She had to still be in love with him, because if she wasn't, he didn't know what he was going to do.

Sticking his hand in his pocket, he pulled out the hair clip he'd found all those years ago and threw it on her desk.

"You're here to…return my barrette?" she asked, frowning up at him.

"No. I'm here because I don't want to." Knowing he was only going to get one chance to do this right, he walked around the desk, gave her chair a quick spin that made her squeal, then caught her hands and knelt at the floor at her feet. "I don't want to give it back. I don't want to give back any of the little pieces of you I still have, because it's all that keeps me going anymore. But I'll let you come and visit."

"Excuse me?" Her voice, while very prim and proper and insulting in the way that only Rose's could be, was cautiously laced with…interest. It was a start.

"Sure. Ah, the TARDIS, she's full of your stuff. Hides it on me, so I can't guarantee it'll still be there, but you could come and visit. Spend some time with your stuff." Reaching up, he cupped her cheek in his hand and prayed to whatever god would listen that she'd hear him, just once, the way she had so many times before. "You could stay."

The silence between them grew heavy as she stared, her eyes desperately searching his face for the rejection she expected to see. All or nothing, then. "I love you, Rose Tyler," he said softly, running his thumb over her cheek and catching a tear as it fell. "I can live without you, but I don't want to."

"But…I'm human," she whispered. "Wasn't that why you left? Because I was too _human_ for you?"

"Oh Rose, no." Appalled, he stood, pulling her up out of her chair. "Humanity is amazing. So precious. I didn't want you to miss a minute of it because of me. And you did." Impulsively, he bent down, running his lips across her wet cheek, gratified when he heard her quick gasp of air. Oh yes. She still loved him. Now all he had to do was convince her to give him a chance to prove he could love her just as much in return.

"2.0-the meta-crisis doctor," he added when she rolled her eyes, "he's over in my universe. He told me what happened."

"Oh." The light that had started to bloom on her face withered quickly. "So this is a pity visit then? Hi, how are you, sorry I ruined your life? Well then, Doctor, you can hop in your TARDIS and…"

Bloody stubborn woman. Without thinking twice about it the Doctor yanked her to him, pressing his lips down on hers and drinking in this long awaited second taste of her. Trying desperately to tell her with his lips and his tongue what his words couldn't seem to do. That he loved her. That he was dying without her.

"How long are you going to stay with me?" she whispered when they finally came up for air, fear and wonder doing a desperate tango in those gorgeous eyes of hers. Eyes that, combined with the taste of her chapstick on his tongue, had him mentally calculating how long the TARDIS could stay in this universe before things started acting up-and how much time he had to kill kissing Rose Tyler before he had to face her mother. It wouldn't be so bad though. This time, at least, he could tell her that she'd be coming back.

"Forever."

_***Sniffle.* I couldn't wait to finish writing this story out, and now that I have I'm sad it's done! THIS, however, is how I see Rose and the Doctor finding their happily ever after. And who knows, maybe his meta-crisis self will do the same. So, now that we're at the end, what did you think? Too unrealistic? Too far from canon? Do you think the 11**__**th**__** doctor and Rose would have had a fighting chance? Stop by the reviews and let me know, and thanks for reading!**_


End file.
